Second Thoughts on an Executioner - Chavoret Jaruboon

Addendum to 'The Last Executioner' (see below)

The fascinating biography of Susan Aldous, ‘The Angel of Bang Kwang’ (Maverick House, 2007; widely available in Bangkok bookshops) gives a complementary picture of Chavoret Jaruboon. Susan has devoted herself to the inmates of Bang Kwang, and the inmates include the staff of the prison as well as prisoners, with a fierce generosity. She describes him as ‘one of the most honest and practical people I know ..who always tries to be fair and respectable to his charges’. He was to become her friend and biggest advocate within the prison and cooperated with her on several projects.

One senses the tragedy of a fair and honest man who has been doomed to take on the tragic guilt of carrying out judicial killing on behalf of others who sleep easily at night by reducing capital punishment to the paperwork of a judicial decision, while hiding the awful reality of the execution process.